Hello, Friends! How are you doing? Are you ready for the weekend? I am full on gearing up, because this weekend feels like baptism by fire back into our American schedule. Americans like to keep busy!! In France, our weekends were almost entirely centered around the house and family outings, but our new life here means this weekend includes a sleepover, a party, a Cross-Country meet, ice skating with friends, a Jazz Band concert, haircuts for the boys, and the usual weekend tasklist (groceries, errands, etc). Hah! I remember those kinds of weekends from Colorado and New York, but it’s been awhile. And I’m sure many of you have similar weekends ahead! Happily, I woke up feeling really good and ready to embrace the next few days. Hooray for that.

While I make a weekend list so nothing slips through the cracks, here are a few things I’ve wanted to share with you:

Oh man. I don’t know if there’s a way to be in America and part of American schools without falling back into American weekends. It’s a hot topic at the Blair house right now because we are missing all that family time we had!

Terri Mead

We still try to do dinner together every night and limit things on Sundays. This way we have more family time and can decide to do things last minute. It isn’t easy with two kids. Good luck with your brood.

i live in my frye boots from fall-spring in oakland. even if the daytime is warm it cools down so much at night that you can almost always rock them! (ps the cheese fries at giant burger are pretty good. and if you haven’t discovered sparky’s yet up by 13, our kids love it for the burgers, blts, shakes & onion ring/fries, and my husband and i love it for the chicken teriyaki)

Sophia

Betsey

I love the boots! I lie in the South Bay and I honestly rarely wear boots. A transplant from the Midwest…and I miss my boots. I see lots of people wearing them, all year (which I find odd…it’s 70 degrees and I see women wearing boots)… I feel warm just thinking about it! Ha! To each their own!

Elizabeth N.

You probably wont get as much use out of them as you would if you lived somewhere with a cold climate, but it still gets cold especially at night and in the mornings during the winter time, so why not get a pair?

Also, I would love to hear more details about the differences between the typical French and America schedules. As a fellow mom of six, I am currently working hard to simplify our overbooked schedule, yet all of the items on our calendar seem so necessary. I know that I need to readjust my thinking, but I’m not sure where to start.

For example, it sounds from your post like there was maybe less socializing for the children on weekends in France? If so, was that because there was less emphasis placed on peer activities, or the activities were done at different times, etc.?

I realize that you’re super busy and may not be able to answer. But if you ever felt up to writing a post that detailed the kinds of attitudes and beliefs that allow Europeans to have weekends that don’t drive everyone to the brink of sanity, I for one would love to read it!

Hi Jen! I should write up a full post on it, but the main differences in schedule that I see are 1) In France, Sundays are really dedicated to family time. No visiting your neighbors. No errands or shopping (in fact, almost every store is closed). No parties or non-family gatherings. And 2) Extra-curricular activities like sports and lessons are typically held mostly on Wednesdays, because there’s no school that day (and only half day schools for the teenagers). This means Saturdays are quite open for most families. We usually used ours to work around the house or take a road trip.

All of those links will keep me busy…I love the boots. You should get them. I just bought a new pair, I don’t know the brand but they’re short with some studs in a dark, grey brown. They were a splurge for me so I hope they last many years. I have the tall hunters for our rainy winter and I love those, too. Your date night pic is making me hungry! Have a nice weekend!

Renee

I have a similar pair of boots and the black and brown combo is especially nice for the versability aspect, they go with almost everything. Hopefully you can find some quiet time on Sunday after your busy weekend.

Bon Courage, as you bring on the challenge of the weekend! Again, I love relating to the windows of cultural differences in your posts. It will be really interesting to see what you integrate; what you’ll keep and what you’ll embrace.

Since I’m originally from the US, our community includes 2/3’s of the cultures you’re speaking of, I can really relate. Just speaking of the French angle, I agree, too, that most of the French families we know have such a nice sanctity to their weekends revolving around family, friends and doing things that include both — they go out their way for hikes to discover the area, arrange dinners, and are easily ready to casually meet for long museum tours & coffee, etc. When we makes plans together, I can feel painfully aware of our “American weekend pace” that is heavy on early-to-rise all-day weekend sports events & performances making us very aware of our over planned life and the lack of time for these very important moments. To compensate for this and to take advantage of the fact that we’re living in Europe, although our daily lives are quite American paced , we do embrace the European idea of summer holidays and the numerous school vacations!

I have a pair of those riding boots from a few seasons ago, purchased in a winter emergency while visiting my parents on the east coast at Christmas, and I will just say that I have worn them loads on both coasts. Happy weekend!

hayley

Why do you think this weekend is such a big deal? Millions of families are doing these kinds of things – and way more – and not commenting on what a palaver it all is. Just do it! Ad I am sure you had to schedule in haircuts in France – or did hair miraculously not grow there!!
Also, these olive us movies are terribly creepy. Do the children like/mind being involved in them? Is there a purpose to them? If there is, I cannot fathom what it is!

Heidi

Gabrielle, why don’t you moderate your comments? This comment is not fair. This isn’t criticism; it’s mean spirited. Plus, I am in total agreement with you about weekends ;) We put in place a no-playdate rule for Sundays, and it has been great, although many other families don’t respect it, so I feel like I am paddling upstream much of the time.

Megan M.

If I had to guess why Gabrielle doesn’t moderate, it’s because there’s so much new content posted every day, and she has so much going on, that people would have to wait a long time for their comments to be approved.

Whatever the reason, I think it’s admirable that Gabrielle is able to respond with grace to someone who went out of their way to be rude. WWDMD? (What Would Design Mom Do?) It’s a question we should all ask ourselves. ;)

Hi Heidi! Good question. I’ll be honest, this site so rarely receives rude comments that I haven’t ever had much need to moderate. Happily, 99% of the time, Design Mom Readers are able to voice their thoughts, concerns and differing opinions with respect and civility.

If that ever changes, 1) I’ll be super sad about it. And 2) I’ll probably have to moderate comments. But till then, I’ll handle the out-of-sorts comments on a case by case basis.

I say go for the boots!
I live in Berkeley and I wear boots (either knee high riding boots or ankle boots) for at least half of the year. I like to wear dresses as much as possible so riding boots are a great way to keep me a little warmer in the cooler weather.

I haven’t tried Giant Burger yet. My two favourite burger places in the Bay Area are Super Duper Burger which has several locations in San Francisco and Phil’s Sliders in Berkeley. Phil’s Sliders is soooo good. You’ve got to go there :)

Gabby, if it helps any I was in SF last winter for a week and it seemed like every girl was wearing riding boots. Living in LA where boots turn out for the most part to be pretty ridiculous, I was jealously aware that the weather there was much more conducive to boot wearing. :) Splurge on, girl. Will look forward to seeing all your styling of them.

[…] in France for two years with her husband and six children. She mentioned in a post that she was having trouble getting used to the frantic pace of American life, especially on weekends. I asked her to elaborate on the different attitudes that lead to a more […]

Martha

Wait. This is weird. I followed the link from Conversion Diary… and I remember you from a search I did a year ago for ‘painting a piano.’ I remember you calling your hubby by his full name, and wondering if you took the piano to France. Are you not the ‘Variations on a Green Piano’ woman?! How cray cray would that be? Small, small internet world.

Gabrielle, I hope you will read this comment, because trust me – it will get better. When we moved from Europe, I was kind of excited to do “more” things, since we were living pretty mellow over there (which I loved). So I put myself into busy craziness and overwhelmed myself with work. It took me the whole year before I told myself to stop. And now, my whole family lives the nice slow life in the US. We do 2 hour walk every day. It’s our must. We can’t live without it. On the weekend, we go to the ZOO, museums, parks. Or visit our dear friends. Everything else must be done from Mo-Thu. (Friday is also part of the weekend when we just hang out together). It’s so important to be with your family, just the 8 of you. At least one day/per week. It will eventually slow down. But you will have to work on it. Fingers crossed!